Foreign Trade Minister Benjamin Dousa (Moderates, R) and Ludvig Aspling (L), the Sweden Democrats’ spokesperson on migration policy, at a press conference 24 October 2024 on Sweden’s global development cooperation on migration, returns, and voluntary repatriation.
Ninni Andersson / Regeringskansliet
One year from now, Sweden heads into a new parliamentary election. For the first time, the Sweden Democrats, the country’s largest nationalist party, have been part of the governing coalition. On the most important political issue—migration—much has changed. Yet voters remain unsatisfied. How did this happen?
For over a decade, Swedish politicians have repeated the same self-exculpatory mantra: “We have been naïve.” Former Interior Minister Anders Ygeman of the Social Democrats first used it after revelations of ISIS recruitment in Sweden. Social Democrat Prime Minister Stefan Löfven later invoked it to explain away failures on mass immigration. Over time, it became a national punchline, shorthand for politicians wilfully ignoring obvious issues.
The consequences of this naïveté were severe. Decades of liberal migration policy produced what Denmark and Norway dubbed “the Swedish condition”: a combustible mix of gang violence and social segregation stemming from mass migration. Voters grew tired of the situation and therefore, in the 2022 election, ended the Social Democrats’ eight-year hold on power. The Sweden Democrats emerged as the largest party on the Right, supporting a right-wing coalition under the Tidö Agreement (named after the castle where it was negotiated). The pact promised nothing less than a paradigm shift in migration and law-and-order policy.
Its policies are heavily influenced, ironically enough, by Denmark’s Social Democrats, who reversed Denmark’s course in modern history and saved it from “Swedish despair.” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson campaigned on, and still speaks of, “Danish solutions to Swedish problems.”
Action followed. 99% of the agreement’s measures have been initiated; one-third are fully implemented, two-thirds in progress—an unmatched record in modern Swedish politics. The government has been so effective on paper that many Swedes barely noticed Europe’s new migration crisis in recent years, reminiscent of 2015. Instead, asylum numbers have fallen to a forty-year low.
But is this ‘success’ truly successful? Here, the picture becomes both very clear and very complex.
Since election night, the Right has lacked a majority in every public poll. Two governing parties now risk falling below the threshold, while the Social Democrats and the Left bloc lead by about 13 points. This is happening while, at the same time, the Right still holds voters’ highest trust on crime and migration.
Clearly, the political payoff is missing, even though the reforms themselves have been substantial. They can broadly be divided into two categories: preventive measures designed to deter new arrivals and repressive measures aimed at increasing departures.
On the preventive side, the asylum system has been overhauled, background checks tightened, and the Migration Agency instructed to prioritise revocation cases. Higher income requirements and stricter rules have reduced permanent residency. Foreign aid and diplomatic ties are now linked to repatriation agreements. Some experts even say Sweden now has tougher asylum rules than Denmark.
While asylum has plummeted, family reunification and labour migration have risen, prompting new restrictions. The biggest failure, as I see it, is the absence of a citizenship moratorium for those who arrived under the last ‘paradigm.’ Only in 2023–2024, 133,759 people, mostly from outside Europe, were granted citizenship, followed by 20,000 expected in 2025. This group equals roughly 10% of Sweden’s population and will most likely vote Left. It was not in the Tidö agreement, but no voter ever voted for this to happen.
On the repressive side, the government will introduce Europe’s highest repatriation grants—up to 350,000 SEK (circa €31,396)—in 2026. Symbolically strong, the grants may have limited fiscal effect. Given that the average migrant costs Swedish taxpayers 74,000 SEK (€6,638) every year for the rest of their life, a larger grant could still yield long-term savings and create greater incentives.
Other measures include expanded internal border checks, prosecutors defaulting to deportation for foreign criminals, and citizenship applications assessed on ‘general conduct.’ Those posing security risks, or with links to extremist groups, will be barred from citizenship. This will open up for government agencies to deny more applications, which is clearly a good and important thing.
Why, then, are voters unsatisfied? The short answer is the reforms themselves, but this needs further explanation. They are good—but not good enough.
Sweden’s challenges run deeper than Denmark’s a decade ago and therefore require uniquely Swedish solutions, not Danish. In this sense, the government has been naïve—not in ignoring problems but in believing its measures are truly paradigm-shifting.
Keep in mind that the word paradigm comes from the philosophy of science and refers to a change in the very framework (axioms) through which reality is understood. A paradigm shift is not a mere adjustment of rules but the replacement of one view of things with another. In politics, this means shifting the everyday experience of citizens, the lived reality of the voter.
By that definition, the government has not delivered a paradigm shift. It has been an administrative shift, not an experiential one.
Not only have the reforms not been good enough, but communication has also failed.
First and foremost, because the Left has largely abandoned the migration debate, removing political conflict and therefore some media coverage from the government. Second, because of that, the policies are not ‘memeable’—rather the opposite.
They lack the symbolic punch and are too technical to stick in the public mind. Try to ask a Swede to name three “tough on migration” policies, and most will struggle, either because the policies are not radical enough or because they’ve never heard of them.
Contrast this with Donald Trump’s approach: mugshots of deported criminals on the White House lawn, televised ICE raids, and military deployment to the southern border. The changes are happening so fast that even the NBC News needs a tracker on ICE’s work and statistics.
Trump is clearly a master in mixing ‘impact policies’ with ‘meme policies’ that can dominate the narrative.
Sweden’s government has done neither, and voters sense it instinctively. Therefore, they want something else. They want change, again.
Without the Tidö Agreement, Sweden would be in far worse shape. The reforms matter and will benefit the country in the long term. But this has not been the promised paradigm shift. Instead, the government has acted like a slightly less naïve version of the establishment it replaced.
With a year to go, the Right trails the Left by thirteen points. Not because voters have moved left in their opinions, but because they expected transformative change and did not get it. Winning power is one thing; using it decisively is another. To sustain momentum, you must deliver reforms that voters can see and feel.
If you promise a paradigm shift, govern like you mean it.
